History
The term "fuzz" or "fuzzing" originates from a 1988 class project at the University of Wisconsin, taught by Professor Barton Miller. The assignment was titled "Operating System Utility Program Reliability - The Fuzz Generator". The project developed a basic command-line fuzzer to test the reliability of Unix programs by bombarding them with random data until they crashed. The test was repeated in 1995, expanded to include testing of GUI-based tools (X Window), network protocols, and system library APIs. Follow-on work included testing command- and GUI-based applications on both Windows and MacOS X.
One of the earliest examples of fuzzing dates from before 1983. "The Monkey" was a Macintosh application developed by Steve Capps prior to 1983. It used journaling hooks to feed random events into Mac programs, and was used to test for bugs in MacPaint.
Another early fuzz testing tool was crashme, first released in 1991, which was intended to test the robustness of Unix and Unix-like operating systems by executing random machine instructions.
Read more about this topic: Fuzz Testing
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)